


Twist the Sinews of Thy Heart

by biextroverts



Series: The Bisexual Clara Memorial Project [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Con Artists, Established Relationship, F/F, Hate Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 13:51:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5499458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biextroverts/pseuds/biextroverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Oswald is a con artist who runs into an old rival in the Queen of Cities. Bickering and sex ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twist the Sinews of Thy Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "The Tyger" by William Blake.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have never even kissed anyone and have no practical knowledge about sex of any kind. Everything I know comes from this website.

She knows she shouldn _'t_ pick up an unfamiliar number, but Clara is suffocating in her boredom, and besides _,_ rules have never really been her thing. Neither have _friendly suggestions,_ really. It was the only comment on her report cards as a child _– Clara is a brilliant student but needs to learn to follow directions even when she “doesn't want to”_ and, later, _Clara is a very intelligent girl but her priorities need a bit of sorting out (writing poetry and seducing her classmates is not the way to spend her time in school)._ She sets down _Emma_ and answers the call.

     “Hello?"

     “Hello, poppet.”

     Clara's blood freezes. A chill runs down her spine. She's not scared of anything, but needles and psychopaths – well, they aren't her cup of tea. “Missy,” she says, trying to hide the tremor in her voice, “I wasn't expecting you to call.” 

     “What fun would it be if you were?” Missy responds. “Anyways,” her tone is chipper, like she and Clara are girlfriends trading gossip, “I heard you were in town and so I figured I'd ring you up. Is that a crime?” 

     “I work alone,” Clara says. “And so do you, unless your modus operandi has changed drastically since last we had the displeasure of meeting?” 

     Missy chuckles. “I'm still a soloist at heart, I assure you, poppet. But I have an itch to play the fiddle game, and that's a two person gig. You in?”

     “After what you did to me in the Czech Republic?” Clara snorts. “You must be mad.” 

     “Quite,” Missy says cheerfully. “What of it?” 

     “I'm not working with you.”

     She can almost hear Missy's pout; red lips puckered and turned down. “I'm offended! Why ever not?”

     “Prague,” Clara says.

     “Oh, do you still have your knickers in a twist over that? Honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal.”

     Clara rolls her eyes. She's earned a reputation as the Impossible Girl, but no one who has called her by that title has ever met the woman on the other end of the phone. “I think we remember Prague very differently, Missy,” she says.

     “You mean you didn't think it was a _pleasure_ to work together?” Missy overemphasizes the word pleasure, which Clara knows is purely for the purpose of getting a rise out of her. She doesn't take the bait.

     “It's not entirely personal,” she tells Missy. “I don't think it's a pleasure to work with anyone. Slows me down.”

     “Don't flatter yourself; I'm at least as quick-witted as you are.” 

     Clara sits back against the headboard. “What's your concept for this fiddle game?” she asks. “No one does an actual violin anymore, not if they want so much as to feed themselves, and you and I are both higher stakes players than that.” 

     “Of course,” Missy says, her tone gracious. “It's an old bit of tech,” she tells Clara, “perfectly useless, but complicated-looking enough that no pudding brain would be able to tell that. 

     “And where would this go off?” 

     “There's a corporation I've marked; they manufacture machines of some sort or another, and they'd be eager as cheese to get their grimy little paws on this revolutionary little doohickey I've got here. I'm guessing five million, even. We'd split seventy-five-twenty-five.” 

     “Sixty-forty,” Clara says, “or no deal.” 

     “I came up with the scheme!” 

     “It's a fiddle game; it's hardly ingenious. Besides, you need me to pull it off. Sixty-forty.” 

     “Sixty-five-thirty-five?” 

     “Sixty-forty.”

     “Fiiine.” Missy lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Meet me at the cafe Güneş in thirty. We can discuss game plan.” 

     “I'll be there,” Clara says. 

     “Ta!” 

     Clara hangs up. 

*****

 

     They finish discussing their game plan on a quiet side street several blocks from the cafe after being tossed out of the place itself for “causing a disruption”. Clara stalks as far as she can away from Missy. She looks her in the eye from across the street

     “I can't believe it,” she says.

     “Can't you?” Missy smiles sweetly. “You know me. And I know you; nothing surprises you, even when it would absolutely shock any sane person. You have a taste for adventure, poppet. We both know it. The Czech Republic?”

     Clara snorts. “You mean when you left me with my knickers down in a back alley in Prague?”

     “Well, yes,” Missy says, waving a dismissive hand, “although I was rather talking about the bit before that. Don't you remember?”

     Clara flushes. She does remember, _well_ – remembers Missy's sharp red fingernails digging into the soft backs of her thighs, keeping them pried apart even as Clara's knees tremble, Missy's mouth on her clit like sin and salvation all at once (Clara has never been particularly religious, but she knows an appropriate simile when she sees one), Missy's _tongue_ inside her and Clara sputtering and falling apart on a scream that is somewhere between the words “Missy” and “hate you” and “god, again”.

     “Yes,” she says. “Funny, that I do. It wasn't really that memorable.” She delivers the line with composure; she will not let her face betray how many times she has thought about that encounter, or the way that thinking about it now is making her all tingly and hot under the collar.

     Missy puts her hand over her heart. “I'm wounded!” she says, full of her usual theatrical flair. Then, changing moods as quickly and fluidly as a trained actor, “or at least I would be if I thought you were telling me the truth”.

     “And what do you think is the truth?”

     “That you loved every minute I had my head between those legs.” Missy grins wickedly at her. “You certainly tasted like you did.”

     Missy's perceptiveness is getting on Clara's nerves (but not, in the slightest bit, turning her on). “How would you know what that sort of satisfaction tastes like?” she asks.

     Missy chuckles. “Hitting below the belt, are we? I'm impressed.” There's a vein in Clara's neck that throbs when she gets properly ticked off, and she can feel it now, pulsing beneath her skin. Missy steps closer to Clara, looks her up and down. “Didn't think kitty had claws, to be honest,” she says. “Thought kitty was more of a house cat.” She takes Clara, quite unexpectedly, in her arms, which she wraps around Clara's waist. The two women are flush against each other; Missy swirls a fingernail idly around the small of Clara's back. “But I'll admit I have been wrong before.”

      “Shocking,” Clara says levelly. Missy is working them slowly back towards the wall behind Clara, while Clara attempts to free her arms from Missy's, cinched around her like a straitjacket. She succeeds, and pushes Missy back; it is like a tango, each trying to pin the other to the wall. Missy laughs; it is a delightful, full-bodied sound. Clara pushes her up against the wall; she wins. Her hands form cuffs around Missy's wrists.

     “Well this is...interesting,” Missy says. “One might even say arousing.” She cocks one leg so her foot is on the wall and her knee is between Clara's legs. “How about you, poppet?” she asks; her voice is sickly sweet. “Are you aroused? Are you...wet, maybe?” She pouts; Clara is quite sure (she is keenly aware of Missy's knee) that she is.

     “Don't you wish you knew?” she says. She takes a hand from one of Missy's wrists to push her leg back to the ground, then replaces it on Missy's wrist. “Sadly, it's not your turn to find out.”

     “What do you mean?”

     Clara settles back a little so her footing is firmer. “Dress. Off. Now,” she states. She lets her hands up off Missy's wrists and Missy undoes the very top button of her dress leisurely, as if she has all the time in the world. Clara grits her teeth, the usual anger mixing with her lust. “I know you can go faster than that,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

     “Now, now. Didn't anyone ever tell you that good things come to those who wait?” Missy undoes two more buttons, then a third, so that Clara can just see the hint of her breasts and the valley between them. Missy draws a fingernail along Clara's cheek, her jaw; Clara keeps her gaze level with Missy's the whole time, though she's still thinking only of Missy's breasts. Missy brings her hand up under Clara's chin to pull Clara in and kiss her. Then her hands find Clara's waist. One of them travels down to her bum, squeezes – a bit too hard, but that's just Missy. Clara groans and opens her mouth to deepen the kiss; Missy accepts the invitation, and Clara presses against her, almost grinding. Her hands come up between them to undo Missy's buttons, and, when she cannot reach any farther, she drops to her knees to undo the rest. Missy shrugs off the sleeves of the dress and it falls to the ground about Missy's ankles. Clara kisses Missy's thigh, takes the flesh between her teeth, and bites. Missy rolls her hips.

     “Naughty girl,” she says, her voice lower than usual. Clara _mm-hmms_ and continues kissing her way up Missy's body – hip, belly, ribcage, sternum, neck – until her mouth is back on Missy's. She nimbly undoes the clasp of Missy's bra and gets a hand on one of Missy's breasts, cupping it for a moment before she takes Missy's nipple between thumb and forefinger and rolls it between them. Missy arches into the touch. Clara's other hand, which is on Missy's shoulder blade, travels down.

     Clara slips her hand up the leg of Missy's underwear and finds the other woman already hot and slick with moisture. “That for me?” Clara murmurs in her ear. She puts her palm against Missy's crotch, reveling a bit in the effect she has on Missy – the older woman is truly soaking wet and her clit is erect. Clara rests there for a moment, then removes her hand and circles Missy's clit several times with her thumb, only millimeters from flesh. She presses down. Missy groans; her hips buck towards Clara's hand and Clara lifts her thumb away, hovering teasingly while Missy searches for pressure. “Perhaps we aren't quite so high and mighty as we'd like to pretend?”

     “Can you blame me?” Missy breathes. Her eyes are dark and heavy-lidded, and she blinks at Clara as if half in a daze. Clara obliges Missy's desire and replaces her thumb. As she strokes Missy's clit, she slides her index and middle fingers back and into Missy. Missy gasps, and her neck arches so that her head falls back against the wall.

     “You really should have been a pickpocket, dear,” Missy tells her breathlessly. “They need –” Clara thrusts her fingers further into Missy and Missy lets out an exquisite moan, deep and throaty and just the slightest bit honeyed- “talented fingers, and –” she reaches out and puts her hands on the sides of Clara's head, curling her own elegant fingers around the backs of Clara's ears so that the two women are forced to look each other in the eyes. Clara stops the hand inside Missy for a moment, and Missy finishes her sentence: “–despite your many infuriating traits, you possess a certain _manual_ _expertise_ , shall we say.”

     “Do you want me to keep fucking you or not?” Clara asks. She has no patience for prattle with Missy – they aren't friends, they have never been friends, and they never will be friends. Missy is just good sex.

     “Oh, certainly.” Missy flashes her that smile, all meticulous lipstick and feral-sharp teeth (does she _know_ what it does to Clara or is the arousal that pools in Clara's core and makes her want to relieve her own tension as much as Missy's just an unintentional side effect of the smile? Knowing Missy, Clara thinks the former).

     Clara returns to the far more pleasurable job of getting Missy off. She twists her wrist slightly, bends it so her fingers are angled up, and, when Missy emits a low sort of sound that is halfway between a gasp and a groan but doesn't come, she adds a third finger and holds her thumb still on Missy's erect clit, putting all the pressure she can behind the digit. Her left hand comes up to tangle in Missy's hair and she presses her lips to Missy's, moaning a little herself when Missy bites down – hard – on her lower lip.

     “I hate you,” Clara murmurs against Missy's mouth, but it comes out a little too turned on and breathless to be truly believable. One of Missy's hands has found its way to her neck, and she feels the cool touch of Missy's palm and the cooler touch of metal rings there. The other clutches her shoulder. Missy's unfriendly red nails dig just a little too hard into Clara's shoulder blade, and, when Clara kisses her again and curls her fingers before uncurling them with the smallest flick of her wrist, Missy clenches around her. She climaxes with what Clara suspects is a gratuitous amount of noise (she's good, but she's not _that_ good), and then stumbles back against the wall. Clara shakes her hand off – she's not sentimental – and goes to help Missy regain her balance. She slips her handcuffs out of her skirt pocket and clutches them in her fist until she's got her hands behind Missy to steady her, then, (because if Missy is right about one thing it's Clara's _manual expertise_ in all the ways that entails), she locks Missy's hands together without dropping her gaze from the woman's face.

     Clara steps back to admire her handiwork. Missy's usually immaculate hair is a tangled mess no longer in an up-do. Her bra hangs unclasped off one shoulder and her panties, while still on, are rumpled and have very obviously been through sex. Her hands are locked behind her back, but she doesn't seem to have noticed yet, because she's still half bent over and panting. When she tries to bring a hand up to smooth her hair, her eyes widen and she straightens up. “Someone played dirty,” she says, sounding neither angry nor impressed, but like an objective third-party observer.

     “And?” Clara says.

     “I'd ask you to unhand me, but, well...” Missy looks pointedly at Clara's hands, “I couldn't risk that being taken too literally.”

     Clara smirks. “I mean, it could be worse,” she tells Missy. “This could be a seedy drug-dealers' alley in Prague. You could have no knickers. I could have money with which to run off. It could-”

     “I think I get the idea,” Missy tells her.

     “Very well,” Clara nods. “Anyways, this street isn't _too_ out of the way, so someone should notice you within a few hours. When they do, you can tell them the key is –” she gestures to a high-up hole in the brick wall behind her, where a brick had once been when the city was young – “over there”.

     “Your generosity overwhelms me,” Missy tells her.

     There is a moment of silence between them, in which they appraise each other – though what they expect to find that they don't already know about each other is a mystery. Finally, Missy says, “If you want to continue this delicious little thing, I'm staying at the Ciragan Palace.”

     “I don't do anything on your terms,” Clara tells her. “I'm at the St. Regis. I'll wait for you.”

     “What makes you so certain I'll come?” Missy asks.

     Clara wiggles her fingers, ostensibly a wave goodbye. “I'm me,” she tells Missy. “You always do.”

     “Don't I?” Missy agrees. Anyone would say that the gaze she has fixed on Clara is a loving one, but Clara knows better. Missy doesn't do love; it's why they get along as they do. “Well, I'll see you when I'm out, I suppose.”

     "See you then," Clara agrees. "Make sure you're prepared not to sleep." She turns on her heel and begins her way back towards the livelier sections of Istanbul, smiling. If Missy is anything like Missy was in Prague, her evening is going to be fantastic.

**Author's Note:**

> This obviously wasn't the Clara/fem!Danny domestic AU I said was coming up but I promise I'll write that eventually and I hope you enjoyed this regardless.
> 
> Up Next: Clara/Rose childhood friends AU


End file.
